Making it easier for journalists, student journalists and non-journalists to investigate public interest questions

Monthly Archives: November 2011

MySociety's Tom Steinberg and others have been compiling a list of open data and 'civic software' projects from around the world. These include tools for submitting Freedom of Information requests, parliamentary monitoring, campaign finance and lobbying data, among other fields.?

In this?interview, filmed at the Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Kiev, Danish investigative journalist Bo Elkj?r explains how he used network analysis tools to track the movement of money between companies. You can find more details and resources from Bo's investigation at?http://gijc2011.bo-elkjaer.dk/

Deep investigation in arms smuggling in former Yugoslavia in 1990s confirmed that many foreign countries were involved in a logistics operation with the aim to arm Slovene, Croatian and Bosnian forces.

We found leads to countries like Bulgaria, Poland, Ukraine, Romania and Russia as export countries, logistic headquarters in the Austrian capital Vienna, financial transactions via a Hungarian bank and transfers via off-shore haven Panama. The United Kingdom sent military equipment to then Yugoslav republics and provided loans for arms purchases, as did Germany. These links were published in our second book of the trilogy In the Name of the State.

However, there are many other leads which might be investigated in other countries, such as Argentina, Australia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Iran, Italy, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Sudan, Sweden, Switzerland and US.?

We focused only on the main lines of the investigation: the countries above could be investigated further.

We based our findings upon studies of thousands of declassified documents and interviews with people involved and other sources.?

A recent world-wide Freedom of Information (FOI) experiment made by the Associated Press (AP) shows the appalling state that governments’ transparency is in, with only 2 in 15 responding to the request in full and in due time.

The experiment began in January 2010 and asked for evidence of terrorism instances and how they were dealt with. Over 100 AP reporters filled requests world-wide asking for the following:

·evidence of arrests and convictions made to counter terrorism over the past decade.

·evidence of detainment, with no arrest, on terrorism accounts.

·evidence to show the status of convictions made for terrorism related crimes over the past decade and details regarding the points of law used for this purpose.

·the nationality of those arrested under terrorism accounts.

·records of names, dates and circumstances for all terrorism related arrests made over the past decade.

·any audits and research of countering-terrorism made over the past decade.

Out of the 105 countries that are covered to some extend by freedom of information laws and were thus asked to respond to the above, only 14 gave useful answers in the required time frame, with a further 38 replying partially. However, the whole picture is not that straightforward. You can check AP’s interactive map division of type of responses received along with expert analysis here.

According to the AP reporter drawing on the results of this test, new-born democracies are more responsive than older and more established. He writes: “Newer democracies were in general more responsive than some developed ones. Guatemala confirmed the AP request in 72 hours and sent all documents in 10 days. Turkey sent spreadsheets and data within seven days. Mexico posted responses on the Web. By comparison, Canada asked for a 200-day extension. The FBI in the United States responded six months late with a single sheet with four dates, two words and a large section blanket. Austria never responded at all.”

The AP is now looking for its next subject to investigate at a global level. You can contribute to their ideas board on their Facebook page.

In this video, filmed at the Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Kiev, investigative reporter and lecturer Luuk Sengers gives his advice for starting out on an investigation, the importance of using a hypothesis and of scrutinising your own investigation.

The following video?was previously published?on the Help Me Investigate Health blog. In?it?Deborah Cohen, an investigative journalist with the British Medical Journal, explains some of the things to look out for when asking questions about the NHS:?

Last week saw another breakthrough for the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act as the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) was brought under its scope. Aiming for “transparency and openness” the FOS is to become public as it was suggested in January this year.

Still, the FOS will not be fully public as there are restrictions to what questions it can answer. To start with, personal information will not be disclosed (as it falls under the Data Protection Act) and any information given in confidence or details that fall under other Acts will also remain private.

According to ifaonline.co.uk the FOS said that it “already accepts and fulfils requests for information.” In response a comment on their website reads: “You learn something new every day. I thought FOS stood for Furtive, Obstructive and Secretive.”

The Independent Financial Advisors website has put together a list of question for the FOS (which you can find here) and some tips for “good requests” that include being specific and asking for documents that do exist rather than documents that might exist or that should exist. (For more general tips on FOIs check James Ball’s on Help Me Investigate.)

Finally, as the FOS prouds itself for answering over 1 million enquires a year, do you reckon that number might be doubled now?

Want to know more about how – and if – the education system works? Today we’re launching a new site to help people investigate issues relating to the education sector.

Help Me Investigate Education will provide sources of data and information on the education sector; profiles of the key players; useful laws and regulations to be aware of; and updates on education-related stories and investigations both in the mainstream media and blogs.

The site is part of the new Help Me Investigate: Networks project.

We are looking for contributors so if you are passionate about health get in touch.